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Gardner: Offseason moves full of fantasy impact

As we hit the unofficial dividing line between fantasy football and baseball seasons, the Toronto Blue Jays and Washington Nationals have reshaped the fantasy landscape more than anyone else this winter.

This week serves as the unofficial dividing line between fantasy sports seasons.

It's the week after the Super Bowl, but the week before pitchers and catchers begin reporting to spring training. Time to shift gears from football to baseball.

Then again, many fantasy baseball owners never stopped thinking about their teams during the offseason, especially when there were player moves to analyze and keeper decisions to ponder.

Roster makeovers

The two teams that have reshaped the fantasy landscape the most in the past several months are the Toronto Blue Jays and the Washington Nationals.

The Jays pulled off the biggest blockbuster by acquiring shortstop Jose Reyes, utility man Emilio Bonifacio and pitchers Josh Johnson and Mark Buehrle from the Miami Marlins. They also acquired National League Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey from the New York Mets and signed free agent outfielder Melky Cabrera.

That's a huge overhaul at the top of the lineup — where Reyes and Cabrera will likely occupy the top two spots — and at the front of the rotation — where Dickey, Johnson and Buehrle figure to be the top three starters.

Toronto finished in the middle of the pack last season in runs, but replacing the combined on-base percentage of .294 the Jays got in the leadoff spot from the likes of Rajai Davis, Brett Lawrie and Yunel Escobar with former NL batting champ Reyes — and his .342 career on-base-percentage — should give the offense a significant boost.

Add in Cabrera and his .346/.390/.516 slash line last season in front of sluggers Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista and watch the fireworks begin. Reyes could lead the majors in runs if he stays healthy all season. He has just as powerful an offense behind him as last year's leader, Mike Trout, does with the Los Angeles Angels. Plus, Reyes doesn't strike out as frequently.

Every season, there are usually a few players I seem to value higher than most everyone else does. Reyes looks like he'll be one of those players in 2013.

Meanwhile, the move to the American League — and the AL East in particular — would seem to hurt the fantasy value of Dickey, Johnson and Buehrle.

As long as owners aren't expecting another Cy Young Award season from Dickey, he could end up undervalued this season.

His rate of 8.9 strikeouts per nine innings in 2012 dwarfs the 5.8 and 5.4 K/9 marks he had in his previous two seasons with the Mets. Moving to the American League figures to cost him a bit in that department.

The change in home parks seems like it would be a negative for Dickey, but Citi Field was more homer-friendly than Rogers Centre in 2012. Dickey was a pretty good pitcher for the Mets even before his breakthrough season. Despite a combined sub-.500 overall record over 2010 and 2011, he posted a 3.08 ERA and a 1.21 WHIP. Those numbers should serve as a decent baseline for his expectations for 2013.

In the recent Fantasy Sports Trade Association experts league draft, I took Dickey in the ninth round with the 105th overall pick. Yes, he's 38 years old, but knuckleballers don't conform to many of the established norms about pitchers.

As for Johnson and Buehrle, they're about as different as two pitchers can be. Johnson, a right-hander, has a wide spectrum of potential outcomes, from top-10 starter to lengthy disabled list resident. Southpaw Buehrle has a stellar health history and has thrown at least 200 innings in each of the past 12 seasons, but a poor strikeout rate limits his upside.

Capital improvement

While the Blue Jays have overhauled their roster this offseason, the Nationals merely refined theirs.

They addressed their primary weakness on offense by acquiring center fielder Denard Span, who will take over the leadoff role.

Reyes' career OBP is impressive, but Span's is 15 points higher (.357). His arrival will allow the Nats to move Ian Desmond and Jayson Werth down in the order — and put them in better position to drive in runs.

Re-signing first baseman Adam LaRoche, who hit a career-high 33 home runs in 2012, was also an important step in solidifying what was already a top-10 offense. Look for Washington to provide even more run support for what was the National League's best pitching staff in 2012.

The Nats also signed the offseason's top free agent closer, Rafael Soriano. It's true they had a closer in place in Drew Storen, but you don't give a guy a two-year, $28 million deal to be a setup man.

Even though manager Davey Johnson likes to alternate between his "A" and "B" bullpens, look for Soriano to get most of the save opportunities this season. And with the Nationals' across-the-board strength, there should be plenty of games to save. In fact, it's not a bad strategy to target Soriano as a top-five closer and back him up with Storen in the later rounds.

One other secondary effect of Washington's ascendance into perhaps the role as favorite in the National League is that budding stars Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper have become borderline first-round fantasy picks.

In the National Fantasy Baseball Championships' latest ADP (average draft position) rankings, Strasburg (13) is the first pitcher selected on average — ahead of Justin Verlander (14) of the Detroit Tigers and Clayton Kershaw (15) of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Meanwhile, Harper's ADP is slowly climbing to the point where he could end up being one of the top five or six outfielders taken on draft day.

The talent is there — he put up a .270/.340/.477 slash line as a 19-year-old with 98 runs scored, 22 home runs and 18 stolen bases. And that was after spending nearly the first month of the season in the minors.

And it probably doesn't help temper the enthusiasm when Rotowire's Chris Liss took Harper with the second pick in the second round (15th overall) in the FSTA experts draft. It might take a similarly bold move on draft day to secure Harper's services.

While many experts have warned about the possibility of regression from the AL's top rookie (Trout), the consensus opinion on the NL's top rookie (Harper) suggests nothing but upside.

The do-littles

On the other hand, it's a little difficult to figure out what some other teams were trying to accomplish with their offseason moves.

The New York Yankees didn't do much to address what seemed like their biggest weakness at the end of last season: an aging roster.

The Yankees re-signed pitchers Andy Pettitte, 40, and Hiroki Kuroda, who turns 38 on Feb. 10, as well as outfielder Ichiro Suzuki, 39. They added Kevin Youkilis, 33, to fill in at third base while Alex Rodriguez, 37, recovers from hip surgery. And last week they picked up 35-year-old designated hitter Travis Hafner.

With stars Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera recovering from injuries, the Yankees have little margin for error. Sure second baseman Robinson Cano, outfielder Curtis Granderson and pitcher CC Sabathia will be worth high draft picks, but don't count on as much help from their teammates as they've received in the past.

Curious as well was the Seattle Mariners' seemingly conscious attempt to acquire as many corner infielder/outfielders as possible. Fantasy owners will have their work cut out for them trying to determine who from among Kendrys Morales, Michael Morse, Justin Smoak, Jason Bay, Michael Saunders, Mike Carp, Eric Thames, Casper Wells and Raul Ibanez will start in left field, right field, first base and designated hitter on any given day.

The Arizona Diamondbacks also collected outfielders during the offseason — so many, in fact, that they could afford to trade Justin Upton, their best player.

In an effort to mold themselves in the image of fiery manager Kirk Gibson, the D'backs appear to be shooting for the highest "scrappiness above replacement" factor in the majors.

The approach has raised the ire of sabermetricians everywhere. But scrappiness can lead to stolen bases and runs. It's a theory fantasy owners will be watching with cautious optimism.